As far as I know, a completely unvisited system is not known by anyone, players or devs. The galaxy has a complex procedural generation engine, when a brand new system is visited, this procedural generator goes to work based on the location of the system and other factors. The resources for that system are already downloaded (textures meshes etc.) all you're downloading (which you do in witchspace) is the position and arrangement of these elements. The construction of a system is done on the fly, they do not have 400,000,000,000 star systems stored on a hard drive somewhere. An explorer visists it, it generates, you see and explore it, and THEN it gets saved.

So if they are constructed on the fly,, only the star(s) exist as a current resource until you jump in? Meaning if you mouse over a system and it show 3 stars, A3, F3, K3 that is all that is in that system until you jump in and the rest (potential planets) is generated on the fly?

So if they are constructed on the fly,, only the star(s) exist as a current resource until you jump in? Meaning if you mouse over a system and it show 3 stars, A3, F3, K3 that is all that is in that system until you jump in and the rest (potential planets) is generated on the fly?

They're constructed on the fly over and over again as needed.

The essence of procedural generation is that its all randomly generated as needed, but for any given system the same seed will be used every time so the same results will always come out.

This is implemented from the top down, there are some hand crafted systems in there but almost all of them could be regenerated from scratch as needed.

There will be some level where Frontier have decided to save the output rather than regenerate each time - I'd guess the level of what you see in the Galaxy Map because that's the level where it sometimes needs to redirect to a hand drawn system - everything below that is regenerated every time someone needs it.

The essence of procedural generation is that its all randomly generated as needed, but for any given system the same seed will be used every time so the same results will always come out.

This is implemented from the top down, there are some hand crafted systems in there but almost all of them could be regenerated from scratch as needed.

There will be some level where Frontier have decided to save the output rather than regenerate each time - I'd guess the level of what you see in the Galaxy Map because that's the level where it sometimes needs to redirect to a hand drawn system - everything below that is regenerated every time someone needs it.

Makes sense, so let's try one more, Hypothetical system X, You and I are both about to jump into the system at the same time, does it generate the same system for both of us? Or let's say you jump into system X and it generates the system, now rewind, I jump in does it generate the same system as yours?

It's "random", so nobody (devs included) can know ahead of time what will come out without running the procedure, but the RNG is the same and the seed is the same so it will come out with the same system every single time it runs. The seeds for the RNG (and any other parameters to the algorithm) are constant and that is all that Frontier need to have saved.

Computers suck at properly random numbers - online gambling sites (where real money is at stake over genuine randomness) will have things like radioactive sources and geiger counters in their server rooms to set the seeds for their RNGs so they're properly random.

It's "random", so nobody (devs included) can know ahead of time what will come out without running the procedure, but the RNG is the same and the seed is the same so it will come out with the same system every single time it runs. The seeds for the RNG (and any other parameters to the algorithm) are constant and that is all that Frontier need to have saved.

Computers suck at properly random numbers - online gambling sites (where real money is at stake over genuine randomness) will have things like radioactive sources and geiger counters in their server rooms to set the seeds for their RNGs so they're properly random.

Ok cool I get it so the math will always have the same set algo based upon information contained in the seed, So an A class system seed has X number of variables to generate the system from and so on.. Thanks for some clarity.

If they are really clever the seed for the generation procedure would be the procedurally generated name. If not they've got a huge list somewhere of all the systems and their seed, and possibly a version number for the version of Stellar Forge that generated the system first (this saves them having to store all the information about each system, other than first explored).

If this is a "slow" process then presumably they've built some caching too, so that recently visited systems don't regenerate all the time, but are just looked up.

I'm assuming that the main stars are not generated every time either, as they appear on the galactic map, but perhaps the delay on hover is due to that regeneration process.

So the sound scapes from Black Holes, and Neutron's are very cool, however, they seem backwards. BH's should be the more ominous sounding one. I have also noticed that there are at least 3 different tracks for High Metal's and I am suspecting that it relates to the core of the planet. Will have to spend some more time testing.

Umm, I encountered an ammonia world earlier that wasn't silent in the system map. In fact, it actually produced a sort of hybrid between a water world and the noises made by Unknown Artefacts (you know, those alien things that everyone's buzzed up about?). Sort of... alien water bubbles and 'chirps' that I thought completely fit with the world-type.

Next ammonia world that anyone finds, turn the volume up and listen for it. I know I'll be doing the same at the next one I come across...

Umm, I encountered an ammonia world earlier that wasn't silent in the system map. In fact, it actually produced a sort of hybrid between a water world and the noises made by Unknown Artefacts (you know, those alien things that everyone's buzzed up about?). Sort of... alien water bubbles and 'chirps' that I thought completely fit with the world-type.

Next ammonia world that anyone finds, turn the volume up and listen for it. I know I'll be doing the same at the next one I come across...

You're POSITIVE this was an ammonia world? If it was, we need to check the other ammonia worlds, if not, this could be a major thing. Do you have co-ordinates?

Umm, I encountered an ammonia world earlier that wasn't silent in the system map. In fact, it actually produced a sort of hybrid between a water world and the noises made by Unknown Artefacts (you know, those alien things that everyone's buzzed up about?). Sort of... alien water bubbles and 'chirps' that I thought completely fit with the world-type.

Next ammonia world that anyone finds, turn the volume up and listen for it. I know I'll be doing the same at the next one I come across...

Yes, Ammonia Worlds do make faint sounds. They are way more quiet than every other rocky world, and they do silence the background music. I knew from the beginning, but since it's not easy to describe sounds and volumes with words i decided to not change the description, also becouse in comparison with other worlds they really are quiet.

i'm doing my best to keep the guide easy, but a change in the description will be made mow that you discovered my secret.

Now I'm 10000 km from home in a place that has really few internet connections, and i don't dare edit the opening post in this conditions with a tablet, but in a week or so i should be at home. And i will try to had cmrd Certhas recordings too.